Dear Dr. Bones,
| The usual liberal complaint against the conservative opposition to higher income taxes is greed and the better-offs’ self-serving reluctance to pay their “fair share.” But while perhaps true in some instances, I don’t think that is an accurate writ against most of those in that now demonized $200,000 and above categories who resent forking over more. Rather, here are a random 12 complaints that I hear from those who become furious about preposed higher income tax rates: |
and then we get the Twelve Tables of the Blimp, on the margins of which I shall now doodle a few graffiti of my own.
(1a) ¿Why any ‘bite’ at all? Our Betters have given us, for example, Rear-Colonel V. D. Hanson-Blimp himself, an’ the late Mr. Jobs, an’ Einstein, an’ Spinoza, an’, in short, the whole Whight Civilisation of the Western Race. To ask them to pay taxes on top of whole millennia of unilateral and preëmptive benefaction would be like interceptin’ St. Nick at the chimney to collect an exit fee.
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(2a) This one appears to be Freelord Blimp slightly misundertandin’ the Hooverville barkin’ points, or at least runnin’ a number of them together injudiciously, plus tossin’ in rather to much of his freelordship’s favorite subject, "My big-farming near neighbor" &c. &c. Anyway, several different _respondeo_s are called for:
(2a-A) His freelordship is tryin’ to help Ebenezer XIV Scrooge an’ Oliver VIII Warbucks dodge so-called ‘progressive’ taxation, a IWP, "improper & wicked project," _Federalist X_, which antecedently *presumes* the Blessings of Inequality a couple of orders of magnitude more notably than it does anything to lessen them in practice.
(2a-B) His freelordship, bein’ a _konsequent_ inegalitarian, as no doubt befits a violence pro, real or wannabe, observes that inside the ranks of the freelordly Class there are many mansions, not all of them affordable by everybooby Classy. This is certainly the case, as a matter of fact, but how it is supposed to work towards proppin’ down the taxes of all Hoovervillains generally beats me. It looks, though, like a sound argument for havin’ six dozen different tax rates rather than only half a dozen, when one goes in for impropriety an’ wickedness.
(2a-C) Taxation of the Classy won’t--cannot possibly--rase enough money to pay for ALL the improper wickednesses that we fiends have resolved to perpetrate. This one, at least, must have been on the barkin’ points actually handed to Col. Blimp to work from. Since all the TopPercenters’ scabs bark like that, counterpoints have been prepared by keyboards more gifted than this one with things like Nobel Prizes in Economics. So ¡let Blimp go argue with Comrade Kruggie about it over here ! [1]
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(3a) Most of what gets swiped in taxation goes whight to the Bad Poor. Here is the heart of it, I suppose, as opposed to the dittopan, whose location is discussed in note [1] to (2a-C).
Or one of the hearts, rather. What I mean by thinking at once of ‘heart’ is that this is Blimp’s best bet for appealin’ to his own hormone-baser Party base an’ vile. "Another’s tears are water," says the Russian proverb, very soundly: it is difficult to imagine a Blimp workin’ Wally Wombschool an’ Cynthia Wasillatensis up into a phrenzy ’bout taxation simply as takin’: *their* hearts won’t be broken if Ebenezer XIV cannot afford quite so many yachts an’ polo ponies next year. No, Dr. Bones, when you really wanna get the couch potatoes up off their potatoe couches an’ ready to stick a pitchfork in the enemies of the Classy, the thing to do is fib to ’em a little about how the loot is distributed once it has been snatched. "Auntie Zeituni" over in Southie, for example. Or like "foreign aid," which certainly deserves to be shudder-quoted once the whightists get through barkin’.
(( This disjunction works both ways: Ebenezer XIV an’ Oliver VIII an’ probably Blimp, in his freelordship’s private capacity, do not actually much mind if bad-poor old Auntie is happy whether in Boston or in Botswana. They only want to keep their "Bush tax cuts" plus . . . plus then maybe ask for a little more economic justice still after they get that coonskin firmly nailed down an’ the Confidence Fairy has once again been sighted at Rio Limbaugh. Only that an’ nothin’ more. Not anythin' more at the moment, thank you, but call again in the mornin' . . . . ))
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(4a) Point IV *seems* to mean, murkily, that Blimp supposes the Wicked State can always borrow (or perhaps simply print) whatever loot it requires, so ¿Why must it rob the Classy too?
This is a very important question for serious mammonologists, but because Blimp is even farther off than the Muses and thou and I from bein’ any sort of political œconomist, I will punt this one for now, hoping to get back to it some day when I get to set the stage and enunciate The Points.
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(5a) Though ‘efficiency’ sounds very grown-up and mammonological, and therefore also better passed over by the likes of me for the reason just given, this is maybe not entirely the case. Master Wally an’ Mizz Cindy cherish, I believe, certain lay-sheep notions of efficiency to which whightist agitproppers like Blimp can appeal, even if Mr. Ricardo would not give such stuff the time of day, not to speak of more recent practitioners. ¿How about "¡WE could sure spend that money better than Auntie Zeituni ever could!"
That is gross confusion, no doubt, a positive Confoundation of Kingdoms. But you are to reflect, Dr. Bones, that even on a good day with a strong wind empowering one’s generators, and even after more than two centuries of economics as a psocial scientism, one has to watch oneself like a hawk watching a Blimp to avoid letting moralism break in at least a little when one ventures a reflection like "X could spend the money better than Y could." That form of words does not, obviously, mean the same thing to a hedge-fund specuvestor or to a Bane Capitalist that it means to the Otherparty base an’ vile, but to suppose that even the Freelords of Finance understand ‘efficiency’ in a strictly amoral (_wertlos_) fashion is naïve.
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(6a) Blimp is quight whight to reveal that the betterness of our Betters is not to be judged by salaries alone. Very odd, though, that his freelordship cannot bring himself to mention anythin’ in particular by name that matters more, like ‘wealth’ or ‘Power’.
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(7a) ¡Tusk, tusk -- to sink to the level of mere Psychobabble! Hoovervillainy really *has* rotted the poor man’s dittopan.
Well, the only thing to do with "So-an’-so makes me sick" is throw it back at once like a grenade: his freelordship ought now to have some insight into how the "Occupy Televisionland" kiddies feel on discovering that nothing whatsoever is really and truly "beyond the dreams of Avarice."
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(8a) This is certainly one of the best barkin’ points available to her who scabs for ScroogeBank an’ Warbucks Defense Widget Inc.
Blimp passes over it so rapidly that I suspect his freelordship agrees with me that this is rather too precious a pearl to cast before pajamaclads. Though all kiddie selfservatives are children, at best, when they reflect, yet there is no way of either Blimp or myself guessing their chronological ages in a market-research way, so as to know, that is, which cohorts to pander to and how.
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(9a) This point is not so good, though next only to Point Two (I think) in frequency of gettin’ barked elsewhere.
One trouble with secret-sector Charity is that it "begins at home" and rarely falls far from the tree. When the literal gates go up around their freelordships’ gated communites, when the barbed wire, an’ the Rotweilers, an’ the mine fields, an’ the counterstormtroopers are finally set in place, no apple is likely to roll down to the Bad Poor out in the wilderness under any circumstances.
Most Conners of Kiddies do not mind this patchiness (so to euphemize), though when they essay to defend it directly, old-fangle _caritas_ tends to go supply-side an’ turn out have more to do with the True Freedumb® of Freedame Bountiful than with the requirements of the needy.
(( It occurs to me that devout dilbertarians must find our good Rear-Colonel unsatisfactory when it comes to promotin’ the True Freedumb® ideoproduct, one which they specially affect. Still,. there are three Points to go . . . . ))
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(10a) Well, ‘technocracy’ can pass for Freedumb™-related, I suppose. ¡ScroogeBank an’ WDW certainly don’t want any stinkin’ ‘experts’ pushin’ ’em around!
But I fear Blimp is not really all that interested in it from a tip-of-the-classberg perspective such as Ebenezer XIV or Oliver VIII naturally take. It sounds to me as if his freelordship is mostly rehearsin’ some Faculty Club pet peeves of his own here, quite a number of notches down the Great Chain of Bein’ from his paymasters. Doubtless it drives Blimp up the stratosphere whenever somebody like St. Elizabeth of Warrenbuffet starts talking as if she could do his freelordship’s tertiary-academic job better than he does it, if only she could spare a weekend or two to learn some Grief an’ Laffin’ like Blimp knows. Is alleged to know.
I’d be a little annoyed, too, by that, but since there is no danger whatever of this replacement actually happening, what is at stake here is not his freelordship’s True Freedumb™, only more like his _amour propre_.
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(11a) This is merely Point III reworded a little, yet another moan that what the Wicked State steals as taxation from the Classy goes chiefly to the Bad Poor. [2]
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(12a) The Bad Poor are not doing badly at all on the material side, not if contrasted with "coal-dusted Dickensian London" or (let me add) the condition of most Lesser Breeds Without even today, out there beyond us pale in the Native-ridden boondocks of the world..
Nothin’ whatever to do with ™rue F®eedumb whatever has that empirical circumstance to do, though since nobooby is likely to deny it, it achieves not much for the Inegalitarian Argument to adduce it.
Actually, Dr. Jones, it looks to me as if his freelordship took off his intellectual pajamas, as it were, in the last few Points an’ went back to bed while his fingers kept on keystrokin’.
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Presumably Blimp is anglin’ for an invitation to debate St. Elizabeth of H*rv*rdy, her of the "intellectual foundations" of Occupy Televisionland.
Well, I would not complain if that were to happen. Her Beatitude happens to be a good guy, an’ his freelordship a (formerly) high-class whightist scab, but happenstance is about all that is. So ’twould be _par congressus_ all ’round. Which is NOT to say, however, that it would be worth watching.
Happy days.
--JHM
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[1] Considered as a rhetorical or ‘agitpropitational’ technique, of course, those who scab for the Classy in writin’ cannot posibly bark this one too often, so his freelordship is rather to be commended than otherwise for includin’ it. Even if it does tend to make his freelordship look like the possessor of dittopan that resembles a post-tornado junkyard.
NEVERTHELESS, I think Wally Wombschool an’ Cindy from Wasilla might have had their faith bolstered with a 13,409th repetition of the counterfactual without all the higgledy-pigglediness borrowed from his freelordship’s neighbor’s barn. She who sets up to vouchafe _urbi et orbi_ Fourteen Points (like St. Woodrow), or Ten (like Father Zeus), or Twelve (thus Blimp, splittin’ the difference between these distinguished Predecessors), ought to arrange them a little to suggest a little hierarchy. "First things first" is not the only acceptable rule, but there certainly ought to be some rule.
And ¡ESPECIALLY! there ought to be some kind of hierarchy in a list of points to be barked out in support of Lady Hierarchia Herself by some stout _Defensor Inequitalitatis_.
Now to put "But the Wicked State can never loot *enough* from the Daughters of Virtue & Sons of Wisdom, L.L.C. " first logically, if not necessarily literally, would be very reasonable, physical impossibility being about as conclusive an argument as exists. Since, however, it is so extremely conclusive that it rather tends to make whatever else one orates look otiose, probably it would work best as bottomline. In which case it is ten places out of order _chez Blimp_, over an’ above bein’ squirreled away amidst the higs an’ the pigs of Point II like Achilles hiding himself amongst the women.
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[2] It’s well worth a whightwinger moanin’ about from the rhetorical or agitpropper perspective, I allow, but at the moment we are trying to discuss his freelordship’s matter rather than either his personal neostyle or the Platonic Form of Persuasion.
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